denis888 I know how many people will start hating me, but this is a question of taste. Humor is a very subjective thing and what is funny for one individual, will sound awful for any other. This is definitely true about this 1971 Monty Python sketch collection. I watched it very attentively, very positively minded. Well, not a single smile. I love good jokes, good humor, good parodies. Here, we see a horrible mish-mash of unfunny films and very gross attempts of being really great. British humor is strange. But it can be really cool. Take Benny Hill, or Mister Bean. They are funny. They are silly. But still, hilarious. Here, the whole film is so English, it is not funny or sarcastic at all. It is just plainly clumsy, sluggish, boorish, boring, untasty, vapid, stale, slow, dry, stupid and simply terrible. Just terrible. I watched it in utter amazement. My answer is that this is the most overrated piece of junk that by some twisted twist of whimsy has become a classic. Of what? Of silliness? Yes. Do not watch it. This is Not good at all. Never will be.

The_Film_Cricket *** MAJOR SPOILER ALERT *** A man walks into the office of a guidance counselor, and takes a seat. The counselor advises the man that he has looked over his aptitude tests and has concluded that the best position suited to him would be as an accountant. "But I am an accountant," the man says, "I have been one for the past 20 years. I want something exciting that will let me live." He reports that his current job is desperately dull and boring, to which the counselor informs him that his tests reveal that he is dull and boring. The job he wants: lion tamer. This despite the fact he has no training and seems to have mistaken lions for aardvarks. He does have a proper hat though. The counselor informs us that "This is what accountancy does to people." That's the grand anarchic spirit of Monty Python. Grab a normal scenario and whip it into something so over-exaggerated and silly that we almost have to laugh at the concept. I think the British are experts at this. There's a drollery to their delivery that allows a scene like that to work. Week after week, this was what made the best parts of The Monty Python troup's TV show "Monty Python's Flying Circus" work. They adopted a sort-of shotgun approach to their sketches, firing every idea at us no matter how ridiculous and hoping that one of them would make us laugh.The laugh ratio on the show was about 40%. Some sketched worked but many did not. Their first feature film And Now for Something Completely Different culls their best sketches into a kind of "Best of" collection. These sketches are not just replays from the show, but actually reenactments, on film without an audience. The laugh ratio in the film is about 70/30. Many of their ideas work if you're willing to stretch your imagination.The troup, which is comprised of six players - Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin - work exhaustively throughout this film to play more than 100 different characters, are so willing to make us laugh that they will come up with nearly anything. That would explain an opening scene featuring a man who claims to have a tape recorder up his nose. He presses one nostril and the tape plays "La Marseillaise". He presses the other nostril and he can rewind the tape. Even stranger is the follow-up act featuring the man's brother who suffers from the same affliction, this time the song plays in stereo. Far from classic comedy, but you get the idea.My favorite is a sketch called "Hell's Grannies", which involves a news report dealing with a roving gang of little old ladies who beat young men over the head with their pocket books. We see them in their flowered hats, swinging their purses and roaring around on their motorcycles while wrapped in shawls. One nervous citizen in a leather jacket and a Jolly Roger helmet informs us that "It's not even safe to go out to the shops anymore." The news reporter lets us know that their domain is "a world in which the surgical stocking is king". Only slightly worse are a roving gang of baby snatchers, grown men in diapers who snatch adults from in front of grocery stores.One of the best creative touches in the film is the way in which the sketches are linked together. One sketch leads into the next in a way this oddly fitting. For example the scene with the accountant ends with a fairy waving his magic wand and giving the accountant something more exciting. That makes him the host of the game show that is the next sketch. It is called "Blackmail" a sadistic game show in which privately obtained films of adultery are shown, and the person on the film has to call in with a cash offer so the show will stop running the film.All of this is very subjective and no one laughs at exactly the same thing. That's pretty much what makes Monty Python work. Either you are in on the joke or you're looking for laughter elsewhere. Either the sight of an armed bank robber committing his crime only the discover that he has walked into a lingerie shop is funny to you or it isn't. For me, I laughed most of the time, the rest I was left scratching my head. Maybe that was the point.

FilmBuff1994 Monty Pythons And Now For Something Completely Different is a hilarious movie filled with completely random sketches,especially the animated bits,which I also find to be some of the funniest bits.I find the Monty Python crew to be some of the funniest people on earth,especially John Cleese,Graham Chapman and Michael Palin.My favourite parts are,the worlds funniest joke,the dirty fork scene,the killer cars and the lumberjack song.I find the Holy Grail and Life Of Brian better though,but Monty Python never let me down.The Monty python crew,Graham Chapman,Eric Idle,Michael Palin,John Cleese,Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam provide use with one random sketch after another in their first feature film based on sketches and characters from Monty Pythons Flying Circus.

TheLittleSongbird While I slightly prefer Life of Brian and Holy Grail, this is still a wonderful Monty Python film. It is basically a recycling of some of the funniest of their BBC TV sketches, but that is not a bad thing at all. Why? Because these sketches are actually hilarious, especially the dead parrot sketch, the Upper Class Twit of the year race, the Dirty Fork sketch and the Lumberjack song. The script is sparkling and witty, with so many quotable and laugh-out-loud funny moments, the film looks presentable, the direction is great and the music is fine. And I loved the acting too, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin are wonderful as they always are with their impeccable comic timing and their characters are cleverly incorporated and memorable. Overall, wonderful and quite unique, a must if you love Monty Python. 9/10 Bethany Cox